Marketing downturn has devastating effect on the Corporate Yesmen Community

He agrees with Nigel. He's got an ongoing commitment to excellence. He says that in these increasingly competitive times, customer relationship management should be at the heart of corporate strategy. But Gavin is no ordinary marketing manager.

Because Gavin is unemployed.

As a corporate yesman, being out on his own is like a fish out of water. Deprived of the oxygen of board level executive buzzwords, Gavin is slowly suffocating. The Yin and yang of his life, provided by sucking up to those above him and stamping down on his inferiors, has disappeared. Unless Gavin can be pushed back into a sea of nourishing buzzwords, he could soon perish.

Gavin is one of a long line of data miners. He'd rise with the lark every morning, and begin 'drilling down' into seams of information, looking for nuggets. His dad had been a data warehouseman, who told him about the old days of working on the 'silos of information' systems. His father had told him how to survive in the corporate jungle, the seminars and the road shows. He told Gavin he should always be ready to step up to the plate, but to avoid the samosas, because caterers never quite do them properly.

Now these generations of hard won experience and knowledge could be lost forever.